Pastas are produced by adding water to wheat flour, kneading the mixture to prepare a dough of firm consistency and shaping the dough by extrusion through an extruder or the like under high pressure. Typically, semolina of drum, which is a hard wheat (or high gluten content) is used as a primary raw material, which is occasionally mixed with egg white, milk and other ingredients. The pastas thus produced are hard and dense. Pastas are prepared by boiling and cooking to provide such a moisture gradient that the moisture content in the center of the pasta is lower than the surface moisture content; the pastas are said to taste best when served "al dente" with a "firm" texture.
To create the "al dente" condition, the use of dry or hard pastas is preferred; however, these pastas take a long time to boil and are unsuitable for the case where convenience and speed in cooking are required.
Several methods have been attempted to serve pastas "al dente" with improved convenience and speed in cooking, and they include providing V cuts along the strings of pastas such as spaghetti or quickly freezing pastas that have been boiled "al dente". However, even the pastas with V cuts cannot be cooked as quickly and conveniently as "instant noodles". Frozen pastas have no problems with quality but because of the limitations in distribution and storage on the market, they have not become as popular as "instant noodles".
As for Japanese or Chinese noodles including udon, soba, hiyamugi and kishimen, various methods have also been proposed to accomplish the manufacture of quick boiling products. According to the known proposals, partially cooked noodles prepared by boiling raw noodles for a short time or boiled products prepared by boiling raw or dry noodles are distributed either chilled or frozen. However, these partially cooked noodles or preboiled noodles have had the problem that during the distribution, not only their palatability deteriorates but also the strings become "too tender" with the lapse of time, thereby deteriorating in texture.
Under the circumstances, it has been desired to develop quick boiling pastas that can be prepared "al dente" by boiling within a comparatively short time, say, not longer than about three minutes, preferably not longer than about one minute, optimally within about thirty seconds and that can be served conveniently, or quick boiling Japanese or Chinese noodles that can be prepared to acquire firm consistency by boiling within a comparably short time.